I just wanted to say how sorry I am that you lost someone so close to you for so long. None of this can take the pain away and maybe it shouldn't. Still, I hope it helps to know that so many people are pulling for you out there.

It sounds like you had a better experience than I did in regard to reading at an early age. I also was reading by the age of 2, and by the third grade my reading level was tested to be approximately that of a high school age child. Unfortunately, I was in public school in Philadelphia, and there were limited resources to deal with kids that were far advanced.

Sure, there were the Mentally Gifted programs, but admission into those programs were sometimes a matter of who you knew, rather than intelligence level. So, basically, I had to push myself if I wanted to be challenged.

I still remember the first adult novel I ever read, Piers Anthony's the Magic of Xanth (in later years it has been interesting to compare those works against his brilliant short story in Another Dangerous Visions) as well as the first book I ever picked up where I did not so much as read the book but almost visualized the story as I progressed through it. That was Robert Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle.

Name: rich Source: unca20050815.htmI, too, know the sting of being better than others. I was able to type faster than any other guy in high school (except for that one other guy who was destined to become a Lifetime Movie of the Week titled: My Life as a Secretary Trapped in a Manager's Body) and I remember how they moved me from the manual typewriter class and up to the electric typewriter class. By the time I was sixteen, I was the envy of the Home Economics teacher and the recipient of many a hated stare from gum-chewing, Pat Benatar typing wannabes. I still remember the first time I correctly typed 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog' and that was when I knew I made it. I took it all in stride because I knew that someday I would find a crowd that would understand my typing skills and welcome me as one of their own.

Name: Neal Johnson Source: unca20050815.htmI remember riding the short bus to school. Being called "stupid." Hiding my face in my hands when long-division drove me to tears. Finally finding my self, my world, my MANY worlds, in the pages of books. Carrying a cat-fuzzed paperback in my back pocket at all times. Begging my parents for a library card because we had to PAY for a library card because we lived outside the city limits, and since it cost eight bucks (big money to a family on food stamps in the 60s) I never got a library card. Starting to acquire books from the Circle K with a five-finger discount. Stealing "Again, Dangerous Visions" (and reading these perceptive words "...so you'd better rush out right now and buy this edition at full-price. Or rip it off from the bookstore."--HOW DID HE KNOW?!) and "the Science Fiction Hall of Fame" and "a Voyage to Arcturus" and "Dandelion Wine" and whatever else my sticky little hands touched. (But NOT Clark Ashton Smith, because words like "Xiccarph", "Poseidonis" and "Zothique" scared piss out of me. Talk about your "crazy ideas!") All to become the average person (but above-average and even tasteful reader) that I am today.

And I just go on hoping that maybe if I rub up against the likes of you all folks long enough, I may advance my IQ a digit or two, or get the static electricity, which is real cool in the dark under the blankets.

But I have these four magical children, and the oldest one graduates High School this Friday. With honors. (She made her first trip to the library at 18 mos.)

I downloaded this last night but haven't had a chance to listen to it yet other than to open it and hear a few seconds to make sure it wasn't a political speech or porn or both. I believe this has the advantage of splicing the 3 archive pieces together as one .mp3 file. The disadvantage is you will miss some of Comic Zones web advertising. The extra advantage is that when homey's roll up and blast Nelly at you in your car you can counter with enough comic geek treble to blow a bad paint job off a Nissan. I'm just sayin'.

I have no idea what the you send it download limit is since I only use it as a once and done thing to transfer files too large for e-mail.

If there is some legal distinguishment between free to listen to and free to download and listen to, LMK and I'll take the link down ASAP.

Name: Earl Kemp Source: unca20050815.htmHarlan, I think you did a fantastic job with your memoir for Noreen Shaw, and you got most of the data correct. It was quite a shock losing her that way, just when I had become used to seeing her at the LA Paperback Show and Sale each year in Mission Hills.

Those '50s and '60s years in the Midwest, with you guys in Cleveland and me (us) in Chicago, were some of the very best there has been.

Noreen was a great help to me during those sf political politics days. I will miss her greatly.

Thanks for doing such a great job for her. Wish you had done it for my ezine.

Name: Charlie Source: unca20050815.htmHE, I emailed Mark Kelly at Locus (online) and he has linked this Board to his website with a statement about Noreen's death. Also, sent a message to the SFWA (online), but their website hasn't been updated in a couple days.

And Rick, Mark also noted the following (FYI): BTW I tried the search engine on the site and got some weird 'webtoys.net' page in response -- something's obviously buggy there.

Re: early reading. I figured out the reading thing at age 3. My parents learned this when I started reading a newspaper to them, and they realized neither of them had previously read it to me. They then realized I'd not been asking them to read to me much lately. I theorize I decided to figure it out since they weren't reading to me as much as I thought they should (24/7, although it probably had been down a bit for a while due to my having a baby sister).

They didn't think more of it until a couple of weeks later when my mother had the following phone conversation with my nursery school teacher;

Teacher: "Did you know he can read?!"
Mom: "Yes, he's been reading for at least a few weeks now. Is there a problem?"
Teacher: "Yes! We pinned progress reports to the children's shirts for them to take home...and he read all of them out loud to the children!"

I'm told that envelopes suddenly became in vogue at that school.

Due to the reading, I did get to skip kindergarten in favor of first grade. Fortunately, I had a cool teacher with respect to that, at least in most ways. I broke the school record for books read by a first grader around mid-year, and racked up a total of 308 "official" books by the end of the year.

"Official" in quotes, since I recall being ticked off that while they'd count Dick & Jane readers, they wouldn't count comic books, with words such as "invulnerable" which were much harder than "See Dick run". If I could've counted the comics, I would've broken 500 easy.

Name: Steve Evil Source: unca20050815.htmSO I drag out this collection of "Batman in the Seventies" comics, and come accross a story entitled "Night of the Reaper!", a delightful yarn about Nazi war criminals hiding out at costume parties. Front page illustration has Batman impaled to a tree. And my eyes wander down to the credits, and find the story is by one Mr. DENNY O'NEIL, and in brackets ( from an idea by BERNI WRIGHTSON, with an assist from HARLAN ELLISON).